Spies of Mississippi by Rick Bowers Read Free Book Online

through the barred windows and glimpsed a frightening scene. Prison inmates in black-and-white-striped garb chopped cotton in the fields under the gaze of guards on horseback with rifles draped over their arms. In the distance stood the barbed-wire fences and looming guard towers of the maximum security penitentiary at Parchman. The van crawled through the gate and into the inner core of the prison, stopping at the maximum-security unit that housed death row inmates, solitary confinement cells, and the electric chair.
    The students were marched down grim walkways to even darker cell blocks. The men were led to cells adjacent to other inmates; the women were taken to an isolated unit. All were issued prison clothes, a Bible, an aluminum cup, and a toothbrush. For the first two days, the inmates lived in fear of being beaten by the guards—or “screws”—until it became clear that their national media status was assuring them hands-off treatment.
    Confined to the maximum-security unit with only their Bibles to read, the riders passed the time singing freedom songs. The warden and guards—concerned that the soulful melodies and defiant lyrics could inspire other inmates to join in—repeatedly ordered the singers to stop. When the singing continued, the guards began taking away items of clothing, toothbrushes, and mattresses.
    CORE organizer James Farmer recalled one singer’s response: “He said: ‘Come take my mattress. I’ll keep my soul.’ And everybody started singing, ‘Ain’t gunna let no body turn me ’round, turn me ’round, turn me ’round.’”
    One night the guards introduced a new tactic by removing screens from the cell-block windows. Swarms of mosquitoes flowed into the cells. And worse was on the way: “A guard came in and said, ‘Look at all them bugs. We’re gunna have to spray,’” recalled freedom rider David Frankhauser. “Shortly thereafter, we heard what sounded like a large diesel truck pull up outside the cell block. And what looked like a fire hose was passed in through one of the high windows. As the engine fired up outside, we were hit with a powerful spray of DDT. Being trapped in our cells, with no protection, our bodies, and every inch of the cells, were drenched with the eye-stinging, skin-burning insecticide.”
    Five weeks into the summer stalemate, more than 150 freedom riders had been arrested and convicted, and waves of additional buses were en route to Jackson. Northern newspaper accounts of alleged abuses at Parchman prompted demands that independent delegations be allowed to inspect conditions and interview the prisoners. Mississippi officials needed a bold new story to change the headlines.
     
    Commission publicity director Erle Johnston had headed north in an effort to persuade skeptical audiences that all was returning to normal in Jackson. In late June, he told a gathering at the Rotary Club in Pocatello, Idaho, that the “self-styled” freedom riders had “failed” to reveal a dark side to southern segregation. To the contrary, Johnston claimed, riders had “brought many representatives of the news media into Mississippi who were able to learn firsthand how the two races work and live in harmony.” Looking his audience in the eye, the public relations man claimed that the riders had inadvertently “done the state a service.”
    At about that time, Commission investigator Andy Hopkins began corresponding with R. J. Strickland, chief investigator of the Florida Legislative Investigative Committee. The two were members of a coalition of southern law enforcement investigators who shared information and tactics for fighting “subversion.” Strickland supplied Hopkins—a graduate of the FBI training academy—with a four-page document entitled “Fair Play for Cuba.” It contained the names of 202 people who had allegedly flown to Havana, Cuba, four months earlier. Two names on the list—compiled from flight manifests at Miami International Airport—were